In the event of the fare making any complaint, or neglecting to pay at
once the full sum demanded of him, the Cabman is empowered to drive him
to the nearest station-house, and to have the matter investigated. If in
the wrong, the Cabman may have him fined for incivility, the penalty
whereof shall be a sum not exceeding five pounds, and not less than five
shillings; or, at the discretion of the magistrate, imprisonment, with
or without hard labour, in the House of Correction, for a term not less
than two calendar months.
Any person refusing to give his card, or to be quietly carried to the
station-house, or convicted of having used insulting or disrespectful
language against a Cabman, to be liable to a heavy fine, not exceeding
£50, one-half of which is to go to the QUEEN, and the other half to the
Cabman, or an imprisonment as above; and the person so condemned is
further to find two sureties to keep the peace for six months.
Any person convicted of two such offences is to be deprived for ever of
the privilege of riding in a public cab.
The rate of payment to be two shillings for the first mile, and as much
as the Cabman likes to charge for every mile after that.
The above rate to be materially increased, if a person is going in a
hurry to a railway, or is returning home late at night, and also on all
special occasions, such as QUEEN'S Birthdays, Easter and Whitsun
Mondays, Horticultural and Botanical _Fête_ days, and all illumination
nights, and likewise at all times when it should happen to be hailing,
snowing, or raining.
In the event of a dispute as to distance, the ground to be measured at
the expense of the person disputing the Cabman's word, and a sum of two
pounds to be paid into Court as a guarantee of the result thereof.
Clause the Thirteenth enacts that, in all matters of dispute, whether
the Cabman shall be proved to be right or wrong, he is to be paid his
expenses, and a certain sum, not less than five shillings, for his loss
of time.
Every person, beyond two, to be charged at the rate of a separate fare.
Luggage to be charged according to weight, at the same rates demanded by
the Parcels' Delivery Company.
Back Fare to be paid on all occasions, and to be doubled after twelve
o'clock.
By the next Clause it is enacted, that ladies are to be charged one-half
as much again as gentlemen (this clause has been objected to as being
rather stringent, and oppressively severe, but when it is considered the
trouble that ladies give, and how they always object to pay what a
Cabman asks of them, and how they always keep the Cabman waiting, with
their useless arguments and frivolous complaints, it is but right that
the Cabman should be protected against all such contigencies, and be
allowed something extra for his unfeeling waste of time).
Babies, if taken, to be charged each as a separate fare, or else weighed
as luggage, according to the option of the Cabman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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